Nepal deploys more troops to quell Maoist protests

[May 07, 2009]  KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- Riot police beat back hundreds of women from Nepal's communist party who protested Thursday in front of the president's house in the capital to demand that he fire the country's army chief.

Nepal's communist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal sparked a national crisis Monday when he resigned and pulled his party from the ruling coalition in protest over the army chief's failure to integrate former communist rebels into the military.

Some 500 protesters from the women's wing of Dahal party marched on President Ram Baran Yadav's residence Thursday, chanting slogans while police used bamboo batons to beat back activists who tried to break through a cordon. Some of the women were lightly injured.

Dahal's supporters are angry that Yadav overruled Dahal on Sunday when the former prime minister tried to fire army chief Rookmangud Katawal.

The tussle between the prime minister and president has shattered the Himalayan country's fragile stability -- achieved three years ago after Maoist guerrillas ended their 10-year insurgency, laying down their arms and joining a political peace process.

As part of that process, former rebels were supposed to be integrated into the national army, but many are still confined to their U.N.-monitored barracks.

Dahal, a former insurgent leader, blamed the army chief for the continued sequestering of the former communist fighters. He announced Wednesday that his party would only join a new government if the president supported the firing of Katawal.

Dahal's party is the largest in parliament, but it does not have a clear majority to rule. The president belongs the second-largest, the Nepali Congress party.

Home Ministry spokesman Navin Ghimire said police and soldiers were keeping close watch on the streets on Thursday. Authorities have imposed a ban on protests and rallies in key areas of Katmandu this week.

The Maoists have planned to rally around the president's house, and security in that area, in particular, has been stepped up, Ghimire said.

The Maoists have warned they will continue to demonstrate in the streets and in parliament to block a new prime minister from being voted in. They have stayed away from crisis talks attempting to form a new coalition government.

The Maoists fought a bloody 10-year war before laying down their guns in 2006. They won the most votes during parliamentary elections last year and then abolished the centuries-old monarchy.

[Associated Press; By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA]

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